Failure
by cooroo
Summary: Ever wondered why Hermione is such a perfectionist? Well, here’s one outlook on it. Just a little fic about friendship.


**Title: **Failure

**Author: **Cooroo

**Summary: **Ever wondered why Hermione is such a perfectionist? Well, here's one outlook on it.

**Disclaimer: **Looks bored Look, people, how many more times do I have to say this! Harry. Potter. Is. Not. Mine! Neither are any of the characters. They all belong to JK Rowling… sigh

**Feedback: **_Pleeeeeeease _review! If you do I'll… um… Looks around frantically Give you cookies!

Enjoy, and don't forget to review! They mean the world to me. 

Ten-year-old Hermione Granger stood at the front of her class. "Fascinating," she said slowly, aware that every eye in the room was on her. "F – A – S – S – I – N – A – T – T – I – N Fascinating."

The room was silent. Or at least it was until Robert Dofery, the class bully, started laughing. "Granger can't even spell _fascinating_," he jeered, nudging his friends on either side of him. "How pathetic!"

"What a worm!" the boy on his left, Gregory Saskeen, exclaimed. Soon ninety-percent of the class were laughing and jeering at the bushy-haired girl with tears in her eyes. The teacher, Miss Mallory, tried to calm them down, but the uproar was so great that there was nothing she could do about it and she soon gave up. Hermione stood, completely frozen, at the front of class, looking at her feet, her cheeks red, and tears in her eyes. Eventually she couldn't take it any more and, tripping over her feet, ran from the room, finally letting the tears flow freely.

The same day, when everyone was teasing her in the playground, yelling out "Fascinating, Fascinating!" repeatedly, Hermione Granger swore something to herself. _'I'll never fail at anything ever again.' _

For the rest of the time she was at Westville Junior, the school she had been going to since she was five, Robert Dofery never let her forget her 'Fascinating' incident. Whether it was just a harsh whisper in the cafeteria line or chanting it at break, everyday he found a way to remind her of it. But one day, everything changed. On her eleventh birthday, she got up at eight, as she had been doing every weekend since she was seven. She walked downstairs, dressed neatly in a skirt and blouse. As she went to get the post, another thing in her daily routine, she noticed a letter addressed, in a rather odd way, to her:

'Miss Hermione Jane Granger,

'The second biggest bedroom,

'12 Hazel Street,

'Westville,

'Cambridge.'

She neatly opened it, admiring the emerald-green ink the sender had used. Her brown eyes scanned the page, widening with every word. She reread it, then ran upstairs to her parents' room, screaming in a most un-Hermione-like way, "Mum! Dad! Look at this!"

Eleven-year-old Hermione Granger raised her hand instantly. It was her first Potions class at her new school, Hogwarts. So far she had been generally ignored, something she savoured after being teased for so long. She read, by torchlight, late into the night, studying every book she had. She had sworn to herself almost a year ago that she wouldn't give anyone a reason to humiliate her – she planned to keep that vow. She would get every answer right, she would get perfect marks in every test, even if it meant staying awake every night and rising early, earlier than her classmates. Only two boys had really paid her any attention, Harry Potter – the very same boy she had read about in _The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts_ – and Ron Weasley. She planned to keep it that way.

Fifteen-year-old Hermione Granger struggled to stay awake in the Gryffindor common room. She, along with her two best friends, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, was studying for her OWLS. She let her eyes close for just a second, then jerked them open. She couldn't fail these tests, she just _couldn't_. It just wasn't an option. After near-perfect marks every term, she couldn't let her Miss Know-it-all image get ruined. Some people might not have liked an image like that, but after Westville, to Hermione it was perfect. She nodded at Ron as he asked her desperately to check his answers for Transfiguration. She got up and walked around to his side of the table, smiling slightly. After all, if your friends picked you out of all people to help you with homework, what did that tell you about your marks?

Seventeen-year-old Hermione Granger looked nervously at her best friends. They were waiting for their NEWTS results. "Well," Harry started, "at least you don't have to worry, Hermione. We all know you're going to get perfect marks."

"What else _could_ Hermione get?" Ron asked, grinning. "After 'O's in everything every term…"

As the two boys continued teasing Hermione about her marks, she realised something for the first time since she was ten: _'When it comes to friends, does it really matter if you get less than ninety-percent on a test?' _

She still strives to be perfect. A boy called Robert Dofery had cut her too deeply for her to not. But she wouldn't let that keep her up at night any longer.

A/N. Well? What did you think? I have no idea where this came from, but I just had to write it. So did you love it? Hate it? Tell me in a review, please!


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